When I look back on everything I've done, it all somehow makes sense to me. But it doesn't make sense when you're actually doing it.

An artist should know art history. Shock value only lasts so long.

It's weird making a drawing of painting. I start to realize that charcoal is this incredibly fragile material. I'm making images of paintings out of dust.

An artist can have an intention, but the viewer has their own subjective experience.

The artist has to be a guardian of the culture.

If you're fortunate enough with your history, like with Men in the Cities, your work becomes so absorbed in culture that the authorship of it doesn't exist anymore.

The translation process becomes a highly subjective thing - turning reds and blues into black-and-whiteness. It's really bizarre for me.

I'm trying to find answers. It can be quite frustrating, but at the same time, I'm never quite satisfied with what I'm doing, so I'm always looking for the next thing.

There are no guidelines for what happens when you get successful as an artist. My heroes were artists like Acconci, and he didn't make any money. That's what I thought success was.

A lot of us grew up in public. That often means that you have to fail in public too.

I've been dealing with epic images, and I realized all of a sudden that I grew up in the age of epics.

Not all that have fallen are vanquished.

If there is something you think you can do well, perfect the action.

In any conflict, the crazier party generally wins.

If you want to improve the situation of the poorest two billion on the planet, having the price of energy go down substantially would be the best thing you could do for them.

My dad's from there, and I have relatives there, but I don't think I've been to Chicago since I was like 9.

It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.

I think we should not do what the Republicans did, which is to spend eight years saying they would do absolutely nothing because we do stand for the country.

If you want to be known for whom you are as a person, then your responsibility it to make your qualities more visible. I believe if you don't you are becoming a victim.

Such is life, here today, gone tomorrow! Nothing goes with one, except one's merit and demerit; good and evil deeds follow one even after death.

Every master was once a disaster.